A presentation by Patrick Mayfield about Portfolio, Programme, & Project Offices. This presentation was first given at the APM Group Best Practice showcase in India (2010).

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Management, M_o_R® and P3O®
Portfolio, Programme, &
Project Offices
The Big Picture
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2. A Sense-Making Framework
The genius of P3O is that it takes previously-disparate elements of
management practice and joins them together
into a powerful platform for senior managers.

3. The main areas of benefit to a senior manager can be represented by this 3-legged stool.
It is one of several ways that the functions within P3O are grouped.
This also serves well as a summary of 3 main benefits to senior managers and executives who
Grapple with the ‘Change Agenda’ within their organisation – the organisation’s investment in
all its projects and programmes.

4. So first, let’s first consider “Decision Support’.
P3O offers a senior manager – or a decision-maker at any level – the potential to
make better decisions on the basis of accurate, timely and relevant information.

5. The late Sir John Harvey-Jones was famous for his turnaround of ICI in the 1980’s.
When he took over as Executive Chairman of the chemical conglomerate it was loss-making.
In his first 30 months he turned around to the position of reporting a £10billion annual profit.
He style was fast tempo, driving out waste wherever he found it.

6. For example, he insisted that each morning,
the stand-alone PC on his desk was loaded
the latest performance data on all operating
units within the business. He wouldn’t
accept that this couldn’t be done.
Among other things, it required two systems
analysts working through the night each
night, extracting the data from the
mainframes, cleaning the data and
representing it as a performance dashboard
on Harvey-Jones’ PC.
This enabled him to drill down to poor
performing units and make fast decisions
with some confidence.
In some respects he was ahead of his time. Certainly in one respect he was ahead of his technology.

7. Of course, today we have EIS systems sitting on integrated LAN and WAN networks, cloud servers and so on.
In operational management there is now an expectation from senior managers that they can and should
have good dashboard information from which they can drill down to specific operating units.
This is fine for operational management. But what about the Change Agenda – all the programmes and
projects other than ‘business as usual’?
There are now equivalent EIS tools with dashboard facilities, but the problem is that these functions are
often neutralised by an immature or inadequate organisation behind them. Where is the equivalent to
Harvey-Jones’ systems analysts?

8. The project manager needed help.
Here we a project, which is temporary, delivering its output to operations.
Fairly early on in the history of ICT project management it was realised that unless the single project
manager had support, their competence would be neutralised by the sheer logistical demands of
administration, plan maintenance and reporting.

9. So the practice of setting up project offices sprang up, which supported the project manager but also
began to assure that all was well on the project – providing an independent and extra pair of eyes for
the project’s owner.

10. Over the last decade or so, managers in the Change Agenda have witnessed the emergence of programs
– vehicles for delivering transformational change. Here a program delivers not merely a single project
deliverable, but a coherent capability, enabling a set-change in business performance.
As with projects, the case for the equivalent of a project office – a programme office – was compelling.

11. In more recent years the portfolio level of
management has been recognised: where
senior managers make decisions on
implementing strategy through all the
projects and programs within that
organisation.
It involves prioritising some work before
others because resources are scarce. It
involves optimising the use of resources
and minimising disruption to operations.
This is not new. Good senior managers have
always attended to this.
Now they are offered support in their
portfolio decision-making by portfolio
analysts and perhaps a portfolio manager,
all of whom sit in a Portfolio Office.

12. So there emerges these three levels of support office: the Project Office, the
Programme Office and the Portfolio Office. Is that, then, P3O?
Hardly. All that gives us is bureaucracy, mostly cost on the business case with
marginal benefit.
No, the concept of P3O is bigger than that. More integrative than that.

13. P3O is more the governance
linking the three levels of
decision support together, as
well as integrated
communications with the
operational level of business.

14. The visual metaphor used occasionally in
the P3O Guide is ‘Governance Backbone’.
This gives us a valuable insight into its
true nature.
Our backbones provide a protection for
the data bus between our brain and the
rest of our body called the Central
Nervous System. The Central Nervous
System does not make the decision – the
brain does – but it is essential for the
brain’s executive control of each part of
the body.
Likewise the P3O does not make the
decisions, but serves decision-makers at
all levels in the organisation with
relevant, timely, accurate and consistent
information – upon which better
decisions can be made.

15. “Design Your Ideal
Portfolio Dashboard”
Below is an expression of an ideal Portfolio Dashboard – what an executive might want to see
on their screen – design a delegate on a flip chart on one of our P3O Practitioner courses.
After this exercise we discuss aspects of what they have designed. Often a delegate will ask,
“Can we really have this kind of information?” This is a healthier process to begin with than
simply to accept the default reports provided by an EPM system such as Project Server.

16. So we’ve explored how P3O can provide a powerful backbone to enable better decisions.
Now let’s look at delivery support.

17. Another function of the backbone in our
bodies is that it provides a flexible
support for our frame.
Similarly, in the chaos of the Change
Agenda, there are several areas where
the programs and projects require
support, otherwise they would just
collapse.
These areas of support can range from
providing specialist expertise when and
where it is needed, to providing
assurance that all is well.
P3O’s delivery support helps the senior
manager sleep easy at night knowing that
all is well, that anything they should be
alerted to they will be alerted to.

18. Finally there is the Centre of Excellence function. This helps reassure senior management that
the whole execution of the Portfolio at all levels is improving, that better practice is being
adopted.

19. Once senior management are fully aware of the size
and potential contribution their ongoing investment
in change through programs and projects, they
want best value from this through improved
performance.
They want program management and project
management to improve.
The P3O is ideally positioned to drive this.

20. The conventional approach is to take external measures of best practice in portfolio,
program and project management (PPPM) and apply these.
The P3M3 is a Maturity Model covering all three levels and maps an organisation’s
maturity in these areas against internationally-recognised levels.

21. Another approach is to look for
better practice within the
organisation itself - to look for what
have been called ‘positive deviance’
or the ‘bright spots’ – and then work
to replicate that practice across all
programs and projects.

22. So, in summary, there are three major areas of benefit from P3O:
1. the ability to make better decisions, based upon, relevant, timely, accurate and consistent
information;
2. Having an internal but independent function that supports delivery and assures the senior
manager that all is well; and
3. The assurance that the execution of the portfolio is improving – at all levels.
Overall, this provides the senior manage with much-needed …. CONFIDENCE

23. A Sense-Making Framework
The genius of P3O is that it takes previously-disparate elements of
management practice and joins them together
into a powerful platform for senior managers.

24. P3O Class of
November 2009
Bangalore
So invest in yourself and your organisation as these people did. Come on one of our
P3O training courses and then begin to experience the benefits for yourself.

25. Thank you
www.pearcemayfield.com
Patrick Mayfield, Executive Chairman
Twitter: @PatrickMayfield
Blog: http://pearcemayfield.typepad.com/patrick_mayfield/